On the Ferry
by LGCoffeeAddict
Summary: Fifth in the Love Game series. Mid-Six Days. When did this happen? When did she stop hating her intern, and when had her intern stopped being worthy of hate? When did he stop talking back to her, and when did she start liking having him on her service?


On the Ferry

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: I really don't own anything.**

**A/N: Okay, so this is pretty much just a nothing fic, but I finally got Six Days (Pt. 1) on HD. I was watching the scene in the NICU, and, oh my god, my heart stopped. You'll see why in this fic, but it's probably just my inability to see what happened in a scene I've re-watched constantly since like three years ago. Seriously. Maybe the fact that I was finally seeing it in HD made it so much more apparent. Maybe in non-HD, it's invisible. I don't know what, but I am so excited that I finally saw it! Anyway, here you go.**

The waves crashed against the hull of the ferryboat that took Addison Montgomery to work, churning up white foam that rebounded and met again with the boat in a never-ending cycle. Addison looked upon these ripples with pensive eyes, one hand slowly tracing her upper lip.

She just couldn't wrap her mind around what happened yesterday. She spent half of it trying to avoid Mark and the other half feeling guilty for the cause of her avoidance. But in her preoccupied state, she failed to realize that she had also spent the previous day with Alex Karev and not wanting to throttle him. She taught, and he listened. She needed an instrument in surgery, and he had it in her hand before she even formed the words.

She got insulted, and he bought the culprit a vanilla latte.

Addison's cerulean eyes softened their intense gaze on the frothy waves when she remembered how she found him softly stroking Laura Grey's head in the NICU, how he confided in her, how his voice sunk almost to a whisper when he said those six words.

_Because he was rude to you._

Her upper lip still tingled where his lips had briefly brushed hers in the almost-kiss that ensued after he said that. Her fingers paused on the portion of her upper lip that had felt the most pressure, when he dipped his head just low enough to capture her lips in the updraft. Although they were interrupted, he still managed to catch a little bit.

When did all this happen? When did she stop hating her intern, and when had her intern stopped being worthy of hate? When did he stop talking back to her, and when did she start liking having him on her service? When did she start liking _him_?

She knew it hadn't just started in the NICU. No, she stood up for him to Mark multiple times, even let him squeeze Laura Grey's intestines, which isn't something she usually lets anyone do, especially not cocky interns. It had to have started earlier.

Could it have been when they had the pregnant woman who had been involved in that fish market accident? All Mark would let him do was to take glass out of her cuts, and Addison distinctly remembered placing a hand on Karev's back and whispering, "How's plastics going for you, Karev? Everything you dreamed of?" in his ear as she passed behind him. Her hand did the same tingling thing then that her lip was doing right now.

Then there was that moment after the woman's surgery, when he walked up to her and started talking about the patient with her. He asked her if she thought the woman would call the father and tell him about the baby, and she told him that, despite his well-meant speech, it wasn't likely. He scoffed when she called him a "Mark Sloan protégé." He'd been in the pit all day.

_Why do you remember all of this so well?_ she asked herself. _It's been months since that woman's surgery._

Maybe it was because of the fact that he looked at her differently that night, as did she to him. She called him a decent guy—something she never would have said back when they first started working together—and…the best way she could describe it to herself was to say that she got lost in his eyes, no matter how cheesy that sounded to her. Thinking back to that moment, the entire exchange was a little bit cheesy. She still wanted to hit herself on the head for saying as lame as, "You're a decent guy, Alex."

She'd called him Alex twice that day, so, no, it couldn't have been that day. Earlier, maybe?

Raising her head from gazing down at the blue-green water, Addison closed her eyes and let the crisp wind kiss her face, hoping it would stop the tingling.

He got under her skin before; she definitely remembered that part. They had a patient, Rebecca, who refused to get a c-section, and when she yelled at Addison to get out, she couldn't handle anymore of it. Mark had just shown up, and Meredith thought she was pregnant. Addison recalled how sad she felt after she'd talked to Meredith. She finally admitted it to herself that Derek was over his wife when she told him not to hurt Meredith. That had been one of the hardest things Addison had ever done, but she luckily didn't get to stay depressed for long. God knows what she would have done if she had.

In a way, she was glad that Karev had come up to her with his cocky attitude mere seconds after she left Derek. He gave her the impetus to turn off Sad Addie and turn on Professional Addie. She could handle Professional Addie, even when she also was Pissed Off Addie at the same time due to a certain intern.

It was that day that Addison had Karev moved off her service, but she remembered how he looked like he'd been slapped in the face when she told him, "For what it's worth, I think you're gonna miss me."

Okay, so then it couldn't have started then. It had to have started earlier if she'd had enough evidence to say that, and he had to have some feelings for her then, too, for his face to be so shocked—even a little hurt—at it.

When Addison opened her eyes, they beheld the rapidly approaching dock, and it finally hit her when she and Karev started growing closer.

The baby that was found in a high school bathroom trashcan—that was the first time they actually had a real conversation, one that wasn't based on medicine, but based on morality and emotion. It happened in surgery, when he opened up to her in his own warped way and let her know on some level that he'd had a rough childhood and still survived it, all the while talking about the baby on whom they were operating.

Then there was the conversation in the NICU after the surgery was done. He stood at one end of the isolate, she at the other, both staring at the small baby boy. She rested her head on her left hand, the two rings on her fourth finger a blaring reminder to what happened the night before between her husband and another intern. She was tired, both emotionally and physically, but she still remembered their talk.

"_How do you not know your kid's pregnant?" he asked._

"_You love your kids; you want to see the best in them," she answered sadly. Honestly, all she could think of was how much that family's situation applied to her marriage. She loved Derek; she didn't want to see that he was obviously still in love with Meredith. Maybe if she had, the incident at the prom wouldn't have happened._

"_Okay, then. How do you have a baby and then throw it in the trash can?"_

_Addison looked up at him at that with sorrowful, knowing eyes. "Something happens, and you panic. You freeze, and you want to hide it and pretend like it didn't happen." She sighed. "I get that." It had happened to her too many times not to understand that._

"_You get that?" he asked, disbelieving. He seemed almost appalled at the fact that she seemed to empathize with the fifteen-year-old._

"_I do," she nodded. "I just don't get what happens afterward." She looked back down at the baby and stuck her hand through the hole of the wall to stroke his head. "I don't get how you go back to class and pretend like everything's fine. Everything's not fine." She felt his acute stare on her cheek, but she chose not to look up. Even he'd heard the despair in her voice at her last statement._

The boat docked, and Addison took one last deep breath of the salty air before heading below to get her car. So she'd finally figured out when she stopped hating her intern, but what now? What did it mean that they almost kissed? What did it mean that her upper lip still tingled? What about the fact that she was actually starting to have feelings for him?

It had definitely been a weird week. Maybe she'd tell him that. That way he won't be obligated to anything, because it was doubtful that he actually felt anything for her. It was Karev.

She unlocked her car door and sat in the driver's seat, placing her hands on the wheel with resolve. It had been a weird week. She'd tell him that.

**A/N: Yeah, so I initially planned this to be like 300 words long, just describing the heart-stopping moment in the NICU that I've apparently missed out on for years, but my fingers apparently had a different thing in mind. In case no one noticed what I finally noticed in the clip, their lips actually touched in their almost kiss! That's what made my heart stop, because it was absolutely adorable. Anyway, now that you're done reading my nothing fic, I have two things for you to do. First, read Darling Pretty's stuff in case you already haven't, because she is an amazing writer who adores Addison and Alex together as much as I do, if not more. Second, REVIEW!**


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